‘Unretirement’ – is it for you?

Look, I might be shy, but there’s no way I’m retiring.

I’m hurtling towards my 60s, traditionally seen as retirement age, but I’m in relatively good health and lucky enough to be enjoying my work. The idea of retirement is certainly appealing but I’ve becoming increasingly aware of those who’ve chosen the path of unretirement.

Unretirement is exactly what it sounds like – reversing your previous decision to retire and returning to the workforce. Of the myriad reasons many have opted to ‘unretire’ – boredom, financial stress – there’s one that sticks in my mind.

It comes from my brother, Tony, who is a tax agent. Tony has been doing the taxes of people from his local community for decades. Aside from developing and refining his skills in the world of tax returns, Tony’s developed what I’d call a superpower.

That superpower entails greeting a long-term client and being able to tell if they had retired from the workforce. How Tony managed to work that out with a high degree of accuracy is very interesting.

Given many of us look forward to retirement, one might expect Tony to identify such clients as happier, more radiant. In fact, his years of experience taught him the opposite was true.

Counterintuitively, Tony has found that the telltale sign of retirement was an apparent sudden ageing of those long-term customers. In many cases, these people have retired with no real plans. They’d ceased occupying mind and body with necessary activities and “withered away” rather suddenly.

Tony’s evidence is only anecdotal, of course, but is certainly indicative of the experiences of some Australians, at least.

Tom Morton provides one such case study.

In an interview with ABC News, Mr Morton outlined the plans he’d made for retirement, including finishing a novel. Having spent 10 years on the novel, Mr Morton completed it in quick time, leaving a hole in his life.

Mr Morton’s response was quite visceral: “”I finished the novel. And then I got really depressed. I was staring into the existential void and thinking, ‘Who the hell am I now?’”

The solution for Mr Morton was to become part of the wave commonly referred to as ‘the great unretirement’.

For Mr Morton, a former academic and journalist, the motivation for his return was to keep himself happy and healthy on the inside. For others, joining the great unretirement movement has been one born of necessity, rather than motivation.

A sharp rise in the cost of living has been a big factor for many of those. Others simply miscalculated how much money they’d need to live the retirement lifestyle they’d anticipated. Some may have had a change in financial circumstance as the result of illness, their own or a loved one’s.

Then there are those that were quite happy in retirement but have been coaxed back to the workforce. The COVID pandemic and other factors have driven dramatic shortage of workers in recent years. To alleviate the problem, employers have come knocking on the doors of former employees.

All of this is certainly food for thought. If you’ve been planning to retire, perhaps you will re-evaluate. Or you might consider becoming part of the great unretirement yourself.

In any case, it might be time to ‘unretire’ and adapt an old song made famous by the seven dwarfs in Disney’s adaptation of Snow White: “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s back to work we go …”

Are you retired? If so, has rejoining the workforce crossed your mind? Let us know why or why not in the comments section below.

Also read: Australians choosing a different journey to retirement